FCJ-201 Visual Evidence from Above: Assessing the Value of Earth Observation Satellites for Supporting Human Rights

Tanya Notley University of Western Sydney Camellia Webb-Gannon University of Western Sydney Introduction: Satellites as Earth Observers Digital technologies provide new opportunities for human rights advocates to mobilise people, coordinate activities, uncover and document abuses, publish findings and engage new audiences (Notley and Hankey, 2013). Earth Observation – which involves gathering information about Earth or activities on Earth via remote devices – offers important opportunities to capture information that may otherwise be unobtainable. Balloons, planes, helicopters, drones and submarines are all capable of remote sensing and all of these technologies can be used in human rights contexts. However, of all these Earth Observation vessels, this article focuses on satellites given their rapid development and application in human rights contexts. Earth Observation via satellites began when the first artificial satellite was sent into space by the Soviet Union in 1957 during the Cold War. Named Sputnik (‘fellow traveller of the Earth’), […]